Taliban Advance: Insurgents Closing in on Afghan Province Capital

Taliban insurgents advanced further into the heart of the northern Afghan provinces when they captured a key district adjoining Kunduz, the provincial capital, over the weekend during the terrorist organization's annual spring offensive.

“We are going to start a military operation to retake the district on Sunday evening,” deputy Afghan army chief General Murad Ali Murad said, according to The Herald.

Despite Kunduz residents’ mass evacuation following the fighting on Sunday, officials from the central government in Kabul declared that there is no real cause for concern, The New York Times reported. Although the Afghan government announced that it had already retaken the administrative center of the Yamgan district from the Taliban, residents doubted the story because officials had initially claimed that the district had not even fallen.

If these new developments regarding the Taliban’s advance are confirmed, they would mark the first time this year that a major population center in Afghanistan has been directly threatened, according to The Times, since Kunduz is Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city with a population of 300,000.

“If the government does not send enough reinforcements, the city of Kunduz will fall to the Taliban,” an anonymous senior provincial official told The Times.

Although there are more than 300 districts in Afghanistan, the Taliban currently has control of only four districts, although several others are in danger of falling to insurgents within the next few days and weeks. This year also marks the first time that Afghan forces are fighting the Taliban’s offensive without the full support of U.S.-led foreign combat troops, notes The Herald.

Taliban insurgents advanced further into the heart of the northern Afghan provinces when they captured a key district adjoining Kunduz, the provincial capital, over the weekend during the terrorist organization's annual spring offensive.